Teaching Synaptic Transmission Using Primary Literature: A Skills-Focused Pedagogical Approach.

Neuroscience is a burgeoning and intensive undergraduate major at many institutions of higher education and several areas in neuroscience education need further development. One such needed development is an increased focus on the procurement of career-relevant skills in addition to the traditional acquisition of subject knowledge. Skill development is particularly challenging in neuroscience education as the subject's interdisciplinary nature provides an atypically broad range of potential careers for graduates. Skills common to many careers in neuroscience include the ability to understand and analyze quantitative data and to draw conclusions based on those analyses. Here is presented an active learning pedagogical approach involving the analysis of seminal articles in the primary scientific literature to provide practice in analyzing data and drawing conclusions from those data while at the same time learning the fundamental tenets of synaptic transmission. Articles were selected that highlight principles such as the role of Ca2+ in synaptic release, exocytosis, quantal release, and synaptic delay. Figures from these articles that can readily be used to teach these principles were selected, and questions that can help to guide students' analysis of the data are also suggested. Activities like this are needed in greater numbers to facilitate the process of helping students gain skills relevant to a productive career in neuroscience.

Digital Timeline Assignment of Key Opioid Research Articles Spanning Five Decades.

Learning to read scientific literature is a crucial component of an undergraduate science education. Undergraduate science students learn to analyze data, read primary literature, and integrate knowledge across articles into a cohesive understanding of a field of study. Often, a class includes students with varying experience reading primary literature, making it difficult to develop assignments that are adequately approachable yet challenging for every student. Here I describe a three-part assignment for an intermediate level neurobiology course that seeks to address this concern. Each student was first assigned a single article in the field of opioid research, which they summarized in an entry for a digital timeline. Second, students presented their timeline entries to the class, and the compiled digital timeline was made publicly available online. In the third part of the assignment, students wrote a brief perspective paper. Here, students explained how their assigned article fit into the field of study using their classmates' timeline entries, along with the option to include additional references outside of the timeline. This three-part assignment sought to provide a supportive yet challenging project for students at all levels. The project was designed as a non-disposable assignment, aligned with additional learning goals and pedagogical practices, including interdisciplinary awareness, writing-to-learn, and inclusive pedagogy. Versions of this assignment have been used for both in-person and remote instruction.

Podcasting Neuroscience: A Science Communication Assignment.

Effective science communication has been identified as one of the core competencies of neuroscience education as articulated at the 2017 FUN Workshop. Yet most undergraduate students do not receive explicit instruction on how to effectively communicate science to a diversity of audiences. Instead, communication assignments typically help students become proficient at sharing scientific information with other scientists through research articles, poster presentations or oral presentations. This presents a missed opportunity to instruct students on the complexities of communicating to the general public, the importance of which has come into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Translating research findings so they can be understood by a non-specialist audience requires practice and deep learning and can act as a powerful teaching tool to help students build science literacy skills. Here I share the blueprint to a broadly-oriented science communication assignment built to address the core competencies of neuroscience education. The assignment acts as the final project for a 400-level neuropharmacology course at a small public liberal arts university. Students work in small groups to identify a topic of interest and research, script, and record an audio podcast geared towards a general audience. The assignment is scaffolded to allow students to work towards the final submission in small steps and to receive feedback from the instructor and their peers. These feedback steps pair with opportunities to revise their work to further develop students' communication skills. Initial feedback from students suggests the assignment promoted deeper learning and higher engagement with course content.

Teaching Neuroimmunology to Undergraduate Students: Resource for Full Course or Modular Implementation.

This paper describes a course I designed to teach neuroimmunology to undergraduate students. In this course I incorporated many active learning strategies to help make it a student-centered class, where they developed communication skills, while reading and analyzing primary literature articles. As the field of neuroimmunology is relatively new, most textbooks in the field approached the subject from the perspective of neurology and autoimmune diseases. Therefore, I used reading, analysis, and student-led presentation of primary papers in the classroom to not only develop critical thinking and application of the scientific method, but also oral communication skills. Other activities such as writing New York Times-style articles and literature review papers were employed to develop written communications skills. The goal of this article is to provide a reference tool for instructors trained in neuroscience to deploy an entire course on neuroimmunology or select a module or a single paper to incorporate into their existing course to offer students a taste for neuroimmunology.

Effective Use of Student-Created Case Studies as Assessment in an Undergraduate Neuroscience Course.

Case studies and student-led learning activities are both effective active learning methods for increasing student engagement, promoting student learning, and improving student performance. Here, we describe combining these instructional methods to use student-created case studies as assessment for an online neurovirology module in a neuroanatomy and physiology course. First, students learned about neurovirology in a flipped classroom format using free, open-access virology resources. Then, students used iterative writing practices to write an interrupted case study incorporating a patient narrative and primary literature data on the neurovirulent virus of their choice, which was graded as a writing assessment. Finally, students exchanged case studies with their peers, and both taught and completed the case studies as low-stakes assessment. Student performance and evaluations support the efficacy of case studies as assessment, where iterative writing improved student performance, and students reported increased knowledge and confidence in the corresponding learning objectives. Overall, we believe that using student-created case studies as assessment is a valuable, student-led extension of effective case study pedagogy, and has wide applicability to a variety of undergraduate courses.

Assessment of Mapping the Brain, a Novel Research and Neurotechnology Based Approach for the Modern Neuroscience Classroom.

Neuroscience research is changing at an incredible pace due to technological innovation and recent national and global initiatives such as the BRAIN initiative. Given the wealth of data supporting the value of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) for students, we developed and assessed a neurotechnology CURE, Mapping the Brain. The goal of the course is to immerse undergraduate and graduate students in research and to explore technological advances in neuroscience. In the laboratory portion of the course, students pursued a hypothesis-driven, collaborative National Institutes of Health (NIH) research project. Using chemogenetic technology (Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs-DREADDs) and a recombinase-based intersectional genetic strategy, students mapped norepinephrine neurons, and their projections and explored the effects of activating these neurons in vivo. In lecture, students compared traditional and cutting-edge neuroscience methodologies, analyzed primary literature, designed hypothesis-based experiments, and discussed technological limitations of studying the brain. Over two consecutive years in the Program at North Carolina State University, we assessed student learning and perceptions of learning based on Society for Neuroscience's (SfN) core concepts and essential principles of neuroscience. Using analysis of student assignments and pre/post content and perception-based course surveys, we also assessed whether the course improved student research article analysis and neurotechnology assessment. Our analyses reveal new insights and pedagogical approaches for engaging students in research and improving their critical analysis of research articles and neurotechnologies. Our data also show that our multifaceted approach increased student confidence and promoted a data focused mentality when tackling research literature. Through the integration of authentic research and a neurotechnology focus, Mapping the Brain provides a unique model as a modern neuroscience laboratory course.

Thinking and Reading like a Scientist: Librarians as Facilitators of Primary Literature Literacy.

Students entering graduate degree programs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields or professional degree programs in the health sciences are expected to have adequate academic preparation in science process skills like the ability to read primary literature effectively. This column scrutinizes this assumption by examining how science is taught to undergraduates, finding that undergraduate STEM curricula rarely prepare students with the mastery of science process skills needed to succeed in graduate school. The column discusses some possible causes of this skill gap and suggests that academic and medical librarians are well-equipped to help students develop primary literature literacy skills. The column closes with a list of practical active reading strategies that librarians can share and model for students.

Primary Literature In Clinical Neuroscience for In-Person Or Remote Instruction.

Structure and function relationships in the nervous system are a major component of neuroscience education. Readings and/or discussion of lesion studies in animal models are often used to demonstrate how brain injury/damage affects specific behaviors or cognitive processes. In contrast, primary literature in clinical neuroscience is less often used to teach brain structure and function relationships and this literature often describes remarkable stories of preserved brain function despite major brain injury/lesion. Here we describe a series of published articles in clinical neuroscience that we used in an undergraduate neuroscience course that challenge the simplistic views of brain localization of function and demonstrate the dynamic and plastic properties of the brain. Discussion of these primary articles can take place in-person or remote via video conferencing platforms.

Cocktail Napkin Presentations: Design of an Activity to Enhance Undergraduate Communication and Critical Evaluation of Neuroscience Primary Literature.

Distilling complex neuroscientific ideas in a succinct and elegant way is an art. The distilled product must have smoothly flowing logic, communicate a substantial body of knowledge, and be easily digestible by the audience. At the same time, the essence of scientific accuracy and experimental design cannot be lost in the distillation process. When undergraduates encounter primary literature for the first time, they are often stifled by its overpowering complexity and astringent technicality, but can quickly learn how exciting and interesting some of their subtle findings can be. Here, the design of a novel learning activity is presented that utilizes a cocktail napkin to synthesize the knowledge and skills required for fluidity in neuroscience primary literature. The activity was implemented within the context of an upper-level developmental neurobiology course for biology majors. The activity was designed specifically to increase neuroscience literacy and oral communication. The activity appeared to address a needed shift in students' attitudes to reading primary literature, and students additionally remarked how deeply engaged they were with the literature. When paired with mentored instruction, students' values toward neuroscience appeared to change as they learned to produce distillations that were rich in content and delightful to the scientific mind.

From CREATE Workshop to Course Implementation: Examining Downstream Impacts on Teaching Practices and Student Learning at 4-Year Institutions.

The faculty workshop model has long been used for disseminating innovative methods in STEM education. Despite significant investments by researchers and funding agencies, there is a dearth of evidence regarding downstream impacts of faculty development. CREATE is an evidence-based strategy for teaching science using primary literature. In this study, we examined whether workshop-trained faculty applied CREATE methods effectively and whether their students achieved either cognitive or affective gains. We followed 10 workshop alumni at different 4-year institutions throughout the United States. External observations of the teaching indicated a high fidelity of CREATE implementation. The students made significant gains in cognitive (e.g., designing experiments) and affective (e.g., self-efficacy in science process skills) domains. Some student outcomes correlated with particular characteristics (e.g., class size) but not with others (e.g., teaching experience). These findings provide evidence for the robustness of the CREATE dissemination model and provide perspective on factors that may influence pedagogical reform efforts.

Navigating manuscript assessment: The new practitioner's guide to primary literature peer review.

For pharmacists, the first years after graduation are spent developing their knowledge base, advancing as a practitioner, and honing their abilities as healthcare providers and drug information experts. New practitioners encounter many challenges during this time, which for many include publishing original research or reviewing manuscripts for colleagues and medical journals. Inexperience navigating the publication process, from submission to receipt of (and response to) peer review commentary, is often cited as a major barrier to timely publication of resident and new practitioner research. Serving as a peer reviewer in turn provides the new practitioner with insight on this process and can be an enlightening experience used to garner confidence in subsequently submitting their own formal manuscripts. A number of publications describing steps for peer review are available, however, many of these articles address more experienced reviewers or critique the peer review process itself. No definitive resource exists for new pharmacy practitioners interested in developing their peer review skills. The information presented in this summative guide should be used in conjunction with practice opportunities to help new practitioners develop proficiency at peer review.

An alternative introduction to reading and evaluating the primary literature for beginning graduate students.

Students are challenged in transitioning from acquiring knowledge and understanding through reading textbooks to their learning to select, read, evaluate, and synthesize the primary literature. A customary approach to teaching this transition to beginning graduate students is for a faculty member to assign "readings" from the recent literature that promise to become key publications; such assignments generally underscore recent, novel scientific content. We advocate here an alternative approach for coaching students very early in their training: first, to read, analyze, and discuss a paper that highlights critically important features of effective and valid experimental design; and, second, to study a paper that can be shown historically to have fundamentally changed the way in which physiological function is understood. We consider as an example of the first goal a study that purports to demonstrate a principle of thermoregulation, but that interaction between students and instructor reveals the study's lack of an essential control. The second goal requires sufficient time for the publication to concretely validate its contribution(s). The purpose is to identify those essential properties of the selected paper that contributed to its having become a truly exemplary study. We present a 1957 paper by Dr. A. C. Burton ( Am Heart J 54: 801-810, 1957) as an illustration and analyze the study with respect to those attributes that contributed to its lasting importance. These alternative approaches to introduce inexperienced students to the original literature can produce critical insight into the process and can help students inculcate essential practices, guiding them to more productive careers.

Characteristics, Emergent Properties and Functions of Somato-dendritic T- and L-Type Calcium Channels.

The primary literature, as an adjunct to textbooks, lectures, problem sets, and laboratories, has become integral to most undergraduate neuroscience courses by extending learning to topics outside the scope of introductory textbooks, providing insight into experimental methods and design, and offering a platform for critical thinking, independent learning, and student presentations. While introductory and intermediate textbooks cover "Hodgkin-Huxley" (H-H) Na and K channels thoroughly, the characteristics of diverse calcium, chloride, and other sodium and potassium channels, and especially the resulting emergent cellular properties and their functional consequences, receive far less coverage. The specific aim of this report is to identify, summarize, and pedagogically evaluate six articles that describe the biophysical channel properties, resulting cellular emergent properties, and potential functions of two types of somato-dendritic calcium channels: type T- and L- type channels. The three-tier vertical organization (channel, emergence, function) across multiple channels (T-, L-type) will help students connect information across parallel and hierarchical levels of analysis.

Epilepsy and the Action Potential: Using Case Based Instruction and Primary Literature in a Neurobiology Course.

Epilepsy and seizure generation are at the center of this case study narrative. By exploring the nature of genetic mutations in voltage-gated sodium channels students will solidify fundamental concepts involving action potential generation and roles for excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the central nervous system. Students will wrestle with primary data, developing analytical and quantitative skills, and generate evidence-based hypotheses and predictions. As written here, the case is used in an upper-level undergraduate course, but because the case focuses on basic fundamental neuroscience concepts, the narrative could be easily adapted for uses in introductory neuroscience courses or potentially first-year graduate courses. Full text of the case study and the classroom implementation notes are available at cases.at.june@gmail.com.

Using Blogs as Practice Writing About Original Neuroscience Papers Enhances Students' Confidence in Their Critical Analysis of Research.

Increasing emphasis is being put on providing students with opportunities to read and write about primary scientific literature in undergraduate neuroscience education. Extensive research has indicated that students' attitudes and self-efficacy as well as writing quality improve when they are provided with opportunities for practice and feedback. Here we tested the value of using a blog format to practice writing about scientific research articles. Students were assigned small groups and did work on their own individual schedules to build toward time allotted in class to discuss the articles with their groups. Our goal was to build confidence in the students' ability to read and analyze original research articles. We found that the students in the junior-level Systems Neuroscience course had high confidence in their ability to read and analyze papers at the end of the blogging experience. Surprisingly, however, this did not manifest in a change in quality of final, higher stakes, written reports on original research articles when compared to a control sample from a previous year that did not include the blog assignments. We conclude that blogs provide a useful format for students to discuss research articles collaboratively while building confidence in their ability to analyze and discuss original neuroscience articles. Although the final reports' quality did not change compared to the earlier offering of the course, we believe that the blog experience is a valuable tool for building confidence and creating a positive experience for students in learning to read and analyze original neuroscience research articles.

Using Case Studies to Promote Student Engagement in Primary Literature Data Analysis and Evaluation.

Analyzing and evaluating primary literature data is a common learning objective in undergraduate neuroscience courses. However, students with more clinically focused career goals often dismiss the relevance of evaluating basic neuroscience literature. Here, we describe using case studies to promote student engagement in primary literature in a cellular and molecular neuroscience course. Two example literature-based case studies are provided: Untwisting Pretzel Syndrome, a neurodevelopment case exploring synapse formation in a pretzel syndrome patient, and The Trials of ALS, a neurodegeneration case exploring axon degeneration and repair in an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient. These cases were assigned after neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration lectures covering key concepts. Both cases begin by introducing the patient and hypothesizing symptoms and diagnoses, followed by scenes incorporating primary data to illustrate disease pathogenesis and treatments. Students complete questions embedded in these cases as homework, and class time is used to discuss their answers. Discussion emphasizes that there can be multiple "correct" answers, and the best answers are accurate and well-supported. Accordingly, students edit their answers in class, and these annotations are factored into a pass/fail grade on the case. Additional scenes and questions from the same case studies are used on the course's take-home exams, thereby allowing students to practice primary data analysis and evaluation before a graded assignment. Student evaluations support literature-based case studies as an effective learning tool, with students identifying cases as the most valuable aspect of the course, and reporting increased confidence in understanding cellular and molecular neuroscience.

Professor Eric Can't See: A Project-Based Learning Case for Neurobiology Students.

"Professor Eric Can't See" is a semi-biographical case study written for an upper level undergraduate Neurobiology of Disease course. The case is integrated into a unit using a project-based learning approach to investigate the retinal degenerative disorder Retinitis pigmentosa and the visual system. Some case study scenes provide specific questions for student discussion and problem-based learning, while others provide background for student inquiry and related active learning exercises. The case was adapted from "'Chemical Eric' Can't See," and could be adapted for courses in general neuroscience or sensory neuroscience.

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Sign Language: Engaging Undergraduate Students' Critical Thinking Skills Using the Primary Literature.

This article presents a modular activity on the neurobiology of sign language that engages undergraduate students in reading and analyzing the primary functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature. Drawing on a seed empirical article and subsequently published critique and rebuttal, students are introduced to a scientific debate concerning the functional significance of right-hemisphere recruitment observed in some fMRI studies of sign language processing. The activity requires minimal background knowledge and is not designed to provide students with a specific conclusion regarding the debate. Instead, the activity and set of articles allow students to consider key issues in experimental design and analysis of the primary literature, including critical thinking regarding the cognitive subtractions used in blocked-design fMRI studies, as well as possible confounds in comparing results across different experimental tasks. By presenting articles representing different perspectives, each cogently argued by leading scientists, the readings and activity also model the type of debate and dialogue critical to science, but often invisible to undergraduate science students. Student self-report data indicate that undergraduates find the readings interesting and that the activity enhances their ability to read and interpret primary fMRI articles, including evaluating research design and considering alternate explanations of study results. As a stand-alone activity completed primarily in one 60-minute class block, the activity can be easily incorporated into existing courses, providing students with an introduction both to the analysis of empirical fMRI articles and to the role of debate and critique in the field of neuroscience.

Fostering student authorship skills in synthetic biology.

Women and racial minorities are underrepresented in the synthetic biology community. Developing a scholarly identity by engaging in a scientific community through writing and communication is an important component for STEM retention, particularly for underrepresented individuals. Several excellent pedagogical tools have been developed to teach scientific literacy and to measure competency in reading and interpreting scientific literature. However, fewer tools exist to measure learning gains with respect to writing, or that teach the more abstract processes of peer review and scientific publishing, which are essential for developing scholarly identity and publication currency. Here we describe our approach to teaching scientific writing and publishing to undergraduate students within a synthetic biology course. Using gold standard practices in project-based learning, we created a writing project in which students became experts in a specific application area of synthetic biology with relevance to an important global problem or challenge. To measure learning gains associated with our learning outcomes, we adapted and expanded the Student Attitudes, Abilities, and Beliefs (SAAB) concept inventory to include additional questions about the process of scientific writing, authorship, and peer review. Our results suggest the project-based approach was effective in achieving the learning objectives with respect to writing and peer reviewed publication, and resulted in high student satisfaction and student self-reported learning gains. We propose that these educational practices could contribute directly to the development of scientific identity of undergraduate students as synthetic biologists, and will be useful in creating a more diverse synthetic biology research enterprise.

Integrating open education practices with data analysis of open science in an undergraduate course.

The open science movement produces vast quantities of openly published data connected to journal articles, creating an enormous resource for educators to engage students in current topics and analyses. However, educators face challenges using these materials to meet course objectives. I present a case study using open science (published articles and corresponding datasets) and open educational practices in a capstone course. While engaging in current topics of conservation, students trace connections in the research process, learn statistical analyses, and recreate analyses using the programming language R. I assessed the presence of best practices in open articles and datasets, examined student selection in the open grading policy, surveyed students on their perceived learning gains, and conducted a thematic analysis on student reflections. First, articles and datasets met just over half of the assessed fairness practices, which increased with the publication date. There was a marginal difference in how assessment categories were weighted by students, with reflections highlighting appreciation for student agency. In course content, students reported the greatest learning gains in describing variables, while collaborative activities (e.g., interacting with peers and instructor) were the most effective support. The most effective tasks to facilitate these learning gains included coding exercises and team-led assignments. Autocoding of student reflections identified 16 themes, and positive sentiments were written nearly 4x more often than negative sentiments. Students positively reflected on their growth in statistical analyses, and negative sentiments focused on how limited prior experience with statistics and coding made them feel nervous. As a group, we encountered several challenges and opportunities in using open science materials. I present key recommendations, based on student experiences, for scientists to consider when publishing open data to provide additional educational benefits to the open science community.